Nutritional Potential of Food Waste

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Food wastage has serious environmental impacts, and flies in the face of inequalities. It also may contribute to avoidable nutritional deficiencies. Here we delve a bit deeper into the health implications of food waste, and look at some ways we can make changes.

Key Points:

1. Approximately one third of the food produced goes to waste. 34% of that wastage happens in the home
2. Reduced wastage could lessen environmental and financial costs, and ensure more people meet their nutritional requirements
3. There are a number of planning, cooking, and storiage tricks that can reduce waste. The key is to first identify what you tend to waste and why, and tailor solutions accordingly.

You might have noticed the growing movement to reduce food waste. Whether it be the publicised efforts of the passionate Jamie Oliver to educate, or of grass roots organisations and individuals in your neighbourhood to make some changes. There’s good reasons for this movement too:

• Food waste has significant environmental impacts, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, water and resource depletion, forest and wetland destruction with impacts on ecosystem quality and biodiversity.
• Smarter use of the food resources we have has potential to reduce the major global problems of economic and health inequality. For example, less than a quarter of the food wasted in the UK, Europe and USA each year would provide adequate protein and energy to each of the 815 million hungry people in the world. 

There are other facts and stats out there, but I think we can agree that food waste is a problem without them. 

Besides these obvious issues, a question remains: what nutritional value can you get from the food that goes to waste? Well, I could only give you a precise answer by coming around  to your place and rummaging through your fridge and rubbish bins. Which I am not going to do. But let’s look at the data to get an idea on how it may apply to you. 

Nutrition wasted

How do your eating and wastage habits compare? 

Sources of food waste

Of the 289kg of food wasted for each Australian per year (2018 stats), 34% comes from household waste. Put another way, we collectively waste 13% of our supermarket shops. Brits waste a similar level of food purchased (15%). 

Significant waste also comes from primary production (31%) and manufacture (25%). Farms dispose of up to 25% of vegetables. Distribution, retail and hospitality are other contributors.

A USA study that included retail and hospitality losses, calculated the loss of 1,217 kcal energy, 33 g protein, 5.9 g dietary fiber, 1.7 µg vitamin D, 286 mg calcium, and 880 mg potassium per person per day. Including food fed to livestock as well as humans, around four times more than is needed is produced in the USA, and three times more food than is required in Europe.

All players in the food industry have a responsibility to address waste. Household wastage is the factor we can each directly address in our daily lives. 

How can we reduce food waste?

The reasons for wastage tend to vary between developed and undeveloped nations. However, something that we can do is learn to better manage our shopping and food use practices, while pressuring more parts of the food industry to change their practices. I myself am guilty of buying a delicious batch of vegetables, then forgetting about them until I notice they need to go in the bin.  

We really need to break down the reasons we waste food so we can tailor a solution that works for us. 

Common causes and some potential solutions are:

• Too much is prepared/served
  • Get a feel for how much you/those you prepare food for eat. It may be a bit trial and error but once you get a ballpark figure you’ll be able prepare appropriate amounts (whether by simply eyeballing portions or by measuring with cups or scales)
  • Left-overs! Did someone say easy work-day lunch?
  • Freeze leftovers you won’t eat within the next 1-2 days
  • Be creative, and use leftovers to make a different meal- eg: add a few vegies, spices, soy sauce or almost anything to make fried rice out of leftover rice; put baked meat/vegies on top of a pizza base

Foodwise offers some handy cheat sheets containing tips on storage, shelf life and shopping wisely.

The Food Waste Verdict

Although there is a lack of detail in the data, it is pretty clear that we waste a huge amount of food and that this can provide for many of our nutritional needs. Additional studies in the vein of the UK household survey would be valuable, particularly if they are of significant size and cover other regions. Strategic planning, appropriate storage and a bit of creativity in our food use could make a significant difference to the health of our planet, while maintaining or even improving the quality of our diets. This is important, as there are numerous cases where our quest to improve our health and longevity comes with a cost to the environment (eg: the penchant for almond milk).

What foods go to waste in your home? What causes this? Do you have any other tips to combat it?